Originating in New York City by Cuban and Porto Rican teenagers, Boogaloo or Bugalú (Spanish) is a genre of Latin music and dance that was very popular in the United States in the late 1960’s. Also known as Latin Soul, Shing-A-Ling and popcorn music, the foundation of Boogaloo was influenced by a funky mix of different styles of African American and Latin music, such as r&b, rock and roll, soul, mambo, son montuno, guaguancó, cha-cha-cha, jump blues and doo wop. We strongly find a presence of funk and soul music and it was the common music interest the attracted the African Americans and Latinos to party together in the same clubs.

The term “Boogaloo” is acknowledged to have been sloganeered by Richie Ray and Bobby Cruz in 1966. Mongo Santamaría’s “Watermelon Man” and Ray Barretto’s “El Watusi” were two of the top 20 1963 breakout hits that somehow formed the establishment of Boogaloo. Johnny Colón, Pete Rodriguez, Joe Bataan and The Joe Cuba Sextet’s biggest Boogaloo hit in the 1960’s entitled “Bang Bang”, were amongst the popular Latin artists who recorded Boogaloo songs. Boogaloo songs were mainly sung in English involving vocals and fierce conga playing. However, no album has ever been dedicated to the Boogaloo, and its popularity only lasted for three years until the end of the 1960’s before Salsa music began to take over. On the other hand, Boogaloo music did not die and to bring some kind of comic relief to their albums, many artists included at least one Boogaloo number.

Although there was never a set of steps for this style of music, Boogaloo was about letting loose. People danced with a side-to-side wave-type movement. Today Boogaloo is very popular in Cali, Colombia, where a fast dance style of this sound rhythm was developed by local communities.

Not to be confused with Latin Boogaloo, the Electric Boogaloo, also known as Boogaloo, was a foundation in relation to hip hop funk and street styles such as popping that started in the mid 60’s which stemmed out of an earlier art form by the same name, Boogaloo, a Latin dance that was spreading across the United States. As Latin music was very popular on the east side Boogaloo continued with its roots keeping the Latin flavor. While in the west coast, funk music was more popular and as it started to expand, the dance did so as well. However, both styles are very different.

The Electric Boogaloo was a mix of the Boogaloo dance (which mostly involved hip, knees and head rolls movements, and danced mostly on funk music) and popping, that became the signature dance of the famous 1977 group called the Electric Boogaloos. The Boogaloo dance was created and inspired around 1975 by Boogaloo Sam (Sam Solomon) who then taught this to the Electric Boogaloos members who later, combining it with popping, formed a more evolved and innovative style. Today the term Boogaloo is used instead of Electric Boogaloo since it is much simpler to say.